July 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



9 



zens. The money is a mere detail. Good 

 beggars may be hired on commission or 

 salary to get enough of it to make up the 

 annual deficits. 



The next thing is a proper organization 

 of departments. This the professors 

 themselves, being educational experts, can 

 easily provide. 



Then there has to be provided a system 

 of government. This will depend at first 

 on the ideas of the originators of the uni- 

 versity. "We have assimied three universi- 

 ties, one started by students, one by teach- 

 ers and one by a single rich man. They 

 may all eventually by evolution reach the 

 same best governmental system, or by de- 

 generation the worst. The fittest may 

 survive at last, but the unfit survives a 

 long time. The United States has a splen- 

 did system of government, divided into 

 legislative, executive and judicial depart- 

 ments, with mutual checks on one another, 

 the result of the brains of Hamilton, Jef- 

 ferson, Franklin and "Washington. Old 

 New England had an excellent system in 

 its town meetings, but many of our states 

 and cities are now suffering from bad gov- 

 ernment, the results of boss rule. So 

 universities have not all reached the best 

 type of government, and the existing type 

 varies all the way from that of the chaos 

 of mob rule to the rule of a czar. Mob 

 rule is unstable, and never lasts very long. 

 The boss soon appears and the rest of the 

 mob become his puppets. The czar system 

 is stable; it may last a thousand years, 

 but it has fallen even in Persia, it is on the 

 verge of falling in Russia, and it may fall 

 within ten years in Turkey. The rule of 

 the boss and that of the czar are not very 

 different in results, although the czar rules 

 by military force and the boss by the 

 power of money. 



The best system for a university is 

 neither the boss nor the czar system, but 

 the democratic system ; not mob rule, but a 



carefully planned system of representa- 

 tive government, of which that of the 

 United States is a model. It is founded 

 on the principles of the Magna Charta and 

 the Declaration of Independence. It in- 

 volves the privileges of free speech, free- 

 dom of the press and trial by a jury of 

 one's peers. 



The object of a system of government, 

 it has been said, is "to get things done." 

 In organizing a good system of govern- 

 ment there should be a carefully prepared 

 list of the different things that are to be 

 done and the best way of doing each 

 should be considered. A mere suggestion 

 of such a list is the following : 



1. Determine the general policy of the 

 university as to what departments of edu- 

 cation it shall engage in. 



2. Determine who shall have the ap- 

 pointing power of the executive officers of 

 the government and who shall appoint pro- 

 fessors and instructors. 



3. "Who shall be charged with the re- 

 sponsibility of raising money and who with 

 the responsibility of spending it? 



4. "Who shall frame the constitution and 

 by-laws and how and by whom shall they 

 be amended? 



5. The government of a university being 

 like that of a nation, legislative, executive 

 and judicial, where shall these different 

 governmental powers be placed? 



6. What procedure shall be followed in 

 case any one has to make a complaint 

 against a professor or instructor or other 

 person holding office? 



7. How shall a jury be constituted for 

 his trial? 



8. If the university is composed of 

 several colleges, shall the general govern- 

 ment of the university be managed by 

 representatives from the colleges, or shall 

 each college exercise only such power as 

 may be allowed it from time to time by a 

 central governing body or by an autocrat? 



